May 3, 1989

Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion

By MALCOLM W. BROWNE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

ALTIMORE -- Hopes that a new kind of nuclear fusion might give the world an unlimited source of cheap energy appear to have been dealt a devastating blow by scientific evidence presented here.

In two days of meetings lasting until midnight, members of the American Physical Society heard fresh experimental evidence from many researchers that nuclear fusion in a jar of water does not exist.

Physicists seemed generally persuaded as the sessions ended that assertions of "cold fusion" were based on nothing more than experimental errors by scientists in Utah.

Furor on Initial Claim

Dr. B. Stanley Pons, professor of chemistry at the University of Utah, and his colleague, Dr. Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton in England, touched off a furor by asserting on March 23 in Salt Lake City that they had achieved nuclear fusion in a jar of water at room temperature.

At a news conference today, nine of the leading speakers were asked if they would now rule the Utah claim as dead. Eight said yes, and one, Dr. Johann Rafelski of the University of Arizona, withheld judgment.

Top physicists directed angry attacks at Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann, calling them incompetent, reciting sarcastic verses about their claims and complaining that they had refused to provide details needed for follow-up experiments. A West European expert said "essentially all" West European attempts to duplicate cold fusion had failed.

Response at Utah University

In a telephone interview, Dr. James Brophy, director of research at the University of Utah, responded, "It is difficult to believe that after five years of experiments Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann could have made some of the errors I've heard have been alleged at the American Physical Society meeting."

The criticism at the regular spring meeting of the society came just before Dr. Pons was scheduled to meet with representatives of President Bush and just after the University of Utah asked Congress to provide $25 million to pursue Dr. Pons's research. A university spokesman said Dr. Pons was in Washington and could not be reached to answer questions.

Cold fusion, Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann said, can be initiated in a cell containing heavy water, in whose molecules the heavy form of hydrogen called deuterium is substituted for ordinary hydrogen. When current is passed through the heavy water from a palladium cathode, the Utah team said, the palladium absorbs deuterium atoms, which are forced to fuse, generating heat and neutrons.

Fusion, which powers the sun and hydrogen bombs, normally occurs only at extremely high temperatures. If a means could be found to harness a form of hydrogen fusion as a commercial source of power, some scientists have said, energy shortages could be forestalled.

Some of the new experiments also sought to reproduce the less contentious findings on cold fusion reported independently by Dr. Steven E. Jones and his colleagues at Brigham Young University in Utah. Dr. Jones, who used a device similar to the one in the Pons-Fleischmann experiment, did not claim that any useful energy was produced. But he did report that slightly more neutrons were detected while the cell was operating than could be expected from normal sources. The result suggests at least the possibility of fusion, he said, although it is not likely to be useful as an energy source.

Physicists who have investigated Dr. Jones's report have been fairly restrained in their criticism, acknowledging that Dr. Jones is a careful scientist. But from the outset they have expressed profound skepticism of claims by Dr. Fleischmann and Dr. Pons.

Attempts to Repeat Experiments

Since March, scores of laboratories in the United States and abroad have sought to repeat the cold fusion experiments, and some completed their investigations just hours before the meeting was convened here Monday.

The most thoroughgoing of the attempts to validate the Pons-Fleischmann experiment was conducted at the California Institute of Technology. According to Dr. Nathan Lewis, leader of the Caltech team, every possible variant of the Pons-Fleischmann experiment was tried without success.

Using equipment far more sensitive than any available to the Utah group, Caltech failed to find any symptoms of fusion. The scientists found no emitted neutrons, gamma rays, tritium or helium, although the Utah group reported all these emissions at high levels. And all the cells consumed energy rather than produced it, the Caltech team said.

The Caltech team intentionally reproduced experimental errors leading to the same erroneous conclusions reached by the Utah group, Dr. Lewis said. By failing to install a stirring device in the test cell, temperature differences in the cell led to false estimates of its overall heat, he said. This may have suggested to the Utah group that its cell was producing fusion energy.
Presence of Helium in Test

Noting that Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann had also reported the presence of helium, a fusion product, in the test cell, Dr. Lewis said his group had also found helium. But helium is a trace component of air, and the amount of helium in the cell corresponded to what normally enters from the atmosphere.

"Pons would never answer any of our questions," Dr. Lewis told an audience of 1,800 physicists, "so we asked Los Alamos National Laboratory to put our questions to him instead, since they were in touch with him."

Other scientists said they had tried every possible variation of the Utah experiments.

Dr. Edward F. Redish of the University of Maryland, chairman of the meeting, said that 10 days ago he telephoned Dr. Fleischmann to invite him to participate in the Baltimore sessions and answer criticism.

"He told me that Dr. Pons would try to come," Dr. Redish said. "But just before the meeting Dr. Pons let us know that he would be too busy discussing cold fusion with a Congressional committee to come to Baltimore."

A spokesman for the University of Utah said Dr. Pons was preparing to meet with members of Bush's staff Wednesday.

Failure to Elicit Information

Many speakers at the meeting reported failure in their efforts to elicit information or comments from Dr. Pons. Dr. J. K. Dickens of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee said that to duplicate the cell used by the Utah group, his laboratory had been forced to estimate its size.

"One published photograph of the Utah cell showed Pons's hand, and that gave us the scale," he said. Dr. Lewis said his group had also used the photograph showing Dr. Pons's hand as a measure of the cell's size. But Oak Ridge Laboratory, like Caltech, failed to find any evidence of cold fusion after it had built and tested the cell.

Physicists asked Dr. Lewis if he could account for the burst of heat that Dr. Pons reported as having destroyed one of the Utah cells.

"My understanding," Dr. Lewis said, "is that Pons's son was there at the time, not Pons himself. I understand that someone turned the current off for a while. When that happens hydrogen naturally bubbles out of the palladium cathode, and creates a hazard of fire or explosion. It is a simple chemical reaction that has nothing to do with fusion."

Other Reports of Failures

Among other major research groups that gave details today of experiments failing to validate the Pons-Fleischmann results were representatives of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California and the University of Rochester. Before the meeting, a joint research group of Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yale University also reported failure to find evidence of the existence of cold fusion.

Dr. Douglas R. O. Morrison, a physicist representing CERN, the European scientific consortium for nuclear research, reported that "essentially all" West European attempts to duplicate the Pons-Fleischmann experiment had failed. The entire episode, he said, was an example of "pathological science," in which an erroneous experiment initally gained some support, then prompted skepticism and finally led to denunciation.

Most of the initial support has eroded. The Georgia Institute of Technology withdrew an early report that it had partly confirmed the Pons-Fleischmann experiment.

At Stanford University, Prof. Robert A. Huggins repeated the Pons-Fleischmann experiment several weeks ago, and obtained results that seemed to suggest fusion. But Dr. Walter E. Meyerhof, professor of physics at Stanford, told scientists Monday night that he had carefully studied his colleague's apparatus and found that the experiment was flawed because of the system used to measure heat. Nevertheless, Dr. Huggins, a materials scientist, said in a telephone interview that he is "more confident than ever" in his results.

While most critics of the Utah work limited themselves to discussion of experimental results, some directed their ire at Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann themselves.

'Incompetence and Delusion'

Dr. Steven E. Koonin of Caltech called the Utah report a result of "the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann." The audience of scientists sat in stunned silence for a mement before bursting into applause.

Referring to a possible error in temperature measurements by the Utah group, Dr. Walter E. Meyerhof of Stanford University offered this contribution:

Tens of millions of dollars at stake, Dear Brother, Because some scientist put a thermometer At one place and not another.

Dr. Brophy of the University of Utah said the Utah team, like all other scientific groups, welcomed criticism by other scientists.

"Any scientist can be proved to be slightly in error or greatly in error," he said. "If Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann have made errors they will acknowledge them. But so far none of their critics have published their criticisms, and they are conducting science by press conference, as we have been accused of doing."

Dr. Brophy said his group was not disturbed by the vote by eight of nine physicists calling the Utah experiment dead. "Pons and Fleischmann will be speaking themselves next Monday at a meeting of the Electrochemical Society in Los Angeles, and the vote there would be likely to be different," he said.

Dr. Jones himself spoke at the meeting, and although participants questioned him sharply about his experiment, questioning was generally friendly.

He drew cheers and laughter when he concluded his talk by saying, "Is this a shortcut to fusion energy? Read my lips: No!" He defended his own experiment, describing his results as a "fragile flower" that would never grow into a "tree" producing useful energy, but could nevertheless "beautify" science.

Some critics, however, continued to insist that Dr. Jones's results also stem from experimental error rather than fusion.

Dr. Dickens of Oak Ridge noted that Dr. Jones had used relatively crude neutron-detecting equipment, and had measured only a very small excess of neutrons over what could be expected from natural sources without any fusion.